Sanchez played for Reading between 1977 and 1984, before moving to Wimbledon for £30,000. He scored the goal that got the Dons promoted to the First Division against Huddersfield Town in May 1986.[5] His most famous moment as a player came in 1988, when he scored the goal that won Wimbledon the FA Cup in 1988 against Liverpool, a match widely believed to be one of the biggest cup final upsets in history. It was not an easy game, as Peter Beardsley had found the net 10 minutes before Sanchez scored, only to have his goal disallowed. Liverpool came close to jeopardising Wimbledon's dream again in the second half when they were awarded a penalty, only for John Aldridge's shot to be saved by Dons goalkeeper Dave Beasant.[6]

During the 1993–94 season Sanchez left Wimbledon for newly promoted Swindon Town, who ended the season relegated with a mere five wins from 42 games and conceding 100 goals. He played just eight league games for the Wiltshire club and left them after only a few months to manage Sligo Rovers in the Republic of Ireland.

In 1977 he represented England Schoolboys in a match against Scotland.

Sanchez won three international caps for Northern Ireland, qualifying by virtue of his Northern Irish mother. He had also been invited to try out for the Ecuadorian national team (Ecuadorian father), but declined on the grounds of distance.

In 1995, he returned to Wimbledon and became reserve team manager, winning the Football Combination in his first season in charge. After two years with the reserves, he stepped up to first team coach under Joe Kinnear.

He became manager at Wycombe Wanderers in February 1999, and with only 18 games left he rescued the team from imminent relegation. It was on the way to the last game of this season at Lincoln that the club bought The Lucky Wycombe Comanche. In 2001, he guided the club (then in the Second Division) to its greatest moment, playing Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-finals; Wycombe lost 2–1, having held Liverpool to 0–0 for most of the match.

After finishing 12th in 2002 and 11th in 2003, the upward progress came to an end with the collapse of the OnDigital TV deal and the subsequent loss of both revenue, and players. After a poor start to the 2003–04 season, Sanchez was sacked by the club on 30 September 2003.[9]

Sanchez was appointed manager of Northern Ireland in January 2004.[10] At that point the side was ranked 124th in the world, had a 1,298 minute-long goal drought, and had not won a game for nearly three years. Northern Ireland improved markedly under Sanchez. By the time he left, Northern Ireland were top of their Euro 2008 qualification group and reached an all-time high position of 27th in the world.

While still manager of Northern Ireland, Sanchez was named as caretaker manager of Fulham following the sacking of Chris Coleman in April 2007.[17] Having achieved his 32-day task of maintaining Fulham's Premier League position, with a record of one win, one draw and three defeats, he was given the manager's job on a longer contract, having first to resign from his position with Northern Ireland.[18]

With four matches of the 2010–11 season remaining, Sanchez joined Barnet as football consultant, to assist caretaker-manager Giuliano Grazioli,[25] in their ultimately successful battle against relegation from the Football League.[26] On 13 May 2011, Barnet appointed Sanchez as manager of the club, with Grazioli as his assistant.[27] In the 2011–12 season, the club struggled to stay in the League despite reaching the Area Final of the Johnstone Paint Trophy before losing to Swindon Town.[28] Sanchez was sacked by Barnet on 16 April 2012 with 3 games of the season to go and was replaced by Martin Allen.[29]

– Lawrie Sanchez questioning the integrity of the Superleague Greece on live television in March 2014 after an Apollon goal was disallowed during the club's 3-2 win away at Panthrakikos.[30]

On 17 November 2013, Sanchez was appointed head coach of Superleague Greece side Apollon Smyrni.[31] He met the players for the first time on 18 November 2013 whilst also giving the club's official website his first interview as Apollon Smyrni head coach.[32] During his time at Apollon, Sanchez has raised his doubts over the integrity on the Superleague Greece.[33] On 30 March, he voiced his discontent on live television during the club's 3-2 win away to Panthrakikos.[30]

Sanchez declined to sign a new contract for Apollon and left the club. This departure was much to the chagrin of the Apollon fans to whom he, in typical Sanchez fashion, had become a much loved cult figure and leader.[35] Sanchez wrote a parting letter to the Apollon fans explaining his thoughts and made it clear that he was very unhappy with the legitimacy of the Superleague Greece, his parting words were: "In the Magic Kingdom that is SuperLeague even a Magician can only have so many powers".[36]